Israeli-NY Businessman Under Probe For Allegedly Hiding Fortune of Venezuela’s Maduro

An Israeli-Argentinian businessman is reportedly being investigated in the U.S. for allegedly working to conceal a secret fortune owned by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

By: Dan Kaminsky

Diego Adolfo Marynberg, age 44, allegedly also goes by the name of Zev Marynberg. With roots in both based New York and Buenos Aires, he is reportedly being looked at by two departments – Treasury and Justice — in connection with funds that some claim are stolen, which may have been transferred by Maduro. The money allegedly totals $1.2 billion and belongs to the Venezuelan national treasury.

Colombian newspaper El Tiempo is reporting that Marynberg’s dealings are being reviewed by investigators. The newspaper has written that Marynberg began to operate inside Venezuela 13 years ago, in 2006. They are claim that funds moved through his company Adar Capital Partners. The firm maintains offices not only in Buenos Aires, but in Tel Aviv and New York, as well.

“The Adar Capital Partners website says the company is based in the Cayman Islands and is “led by founder and CIO Zev Marynberg,” reported Vos Iz Neias. “Its managing director, Bryan Shapira, told the Argentine news website Infobae that the accusations and the article naming Marynberg are false while confirming that the firm had some legal operations with Venezuela until 2015. The Infobae report includes links to Shapira’s letter to the editor in El Tiempo explaining that the company has been a victim of extortion.”

As El Tiempo noted, “Few know his face, but his name began to circulate this week, after the government of Donald Trump announced that it is preparing new sanctions against businessmen who would be behind the movement of more than $1.2 billion dollars that Maduro has managed to plunder the Venezuelan treasury.”

The Spanish-language newspaper referred to Marynberg as “an old acquaintance of the regime, who landed in Venezuela in 2006 with the promise of investing in public companies or expropriated by Hugo Chavez, in crisis, which was well seen by the Bolivarian dictatorship, according to informants said today under the protection of the United States.”

The El Tiempo piece continued, “With the dividends he claims to have obtained from that and other businesses, he has acquired expensive properties in the United States, including an apartment of 1,500 square meters, located in the south of Central Park, in New York. After sealing the transaction, in 2015 he sold it for more than $30 million to move to another eccentric property in the north of this city, where a reputed Jewish community is based.”